Defensive Cyberspace Initiatives Essay

How do you secure something that is changing faster than you can fix it? The Internet has had security problems since its earliest days as a pure research project. Today, after several years and orders of magnitude of growth, is still has security problems. It is being used for a purpose for which it was never intended: commerce. It is somewhat ironic that the early Internet was design as a prototype for a high-availability command and control network that could resist outages resulting from enemy actions, yet it cannot resist college undergraduates. The problem is that the attackers are on, and make up apart of, the network they are attacking. Designing a system that is capable of resisting attack from within,

Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote, “by indirection finds direction out.” Although used in a different, the quote directly relates to the principle of asymmetric warfare. Andrew J. Mack first used a name for this tactic of war in his 1975 book, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars.” Asymmetric simply means that two sides are not the same. This type of warfare can be used between groups of people or countries. Just like any war, the motivation can be economic, religious, or political. Asymmetrical warfare is usually exemplified in long, drawn out wars, rather than short battles. More small groups are turning to this idea, making “the world more uncertain, unstable, and difficult to anticipate.” (Grange)

Anti -access/area denial assets are expanding at a rapid rate as other countries and groups seek to prevent United States power projection globally. In previous conflicts, especially during the Cold War, the way for the U.S. to win was to utilize better technology and employ it to prevent the enemy’s maneuverability. During the cold war, the US had the advantage over the Soviet Union due to power projection of weapons; they developed a better strategy and understanding of the most likely avenues of combat on the battlefield, and intelligence technology that allowed better capabilities to determine the enemy’s capabilities. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, conventional means of intelligence collection was hindered by the drawdown of US military forces, mainly in Europe and other countries in Asia, and allowed US adversaries to obtain advanced technology. “This reduction of US military power projection in those regions has led to equaling the battlefield against future operations and puts the US at a disadvantage as the loss of major intelligence capabilities crippled its oversight in those particular regions .” It also weakens future intelligence gathering networks, possibly future operations, and impacts policymakers’ foreign policy decisions.

The “asymmetry” in asymmetric warfare is an inherently relational concept. It refers to a relative dissimilarity between opponents’ in battle, derived from a difference in relational strength amid warring sides. This asymmetry has tended to be in terms of status and organization; means and resources, goals and objectives; and strategies and tactics. The relationship between the belligerents in today’s conflicts varies in many tactical, strategic and operational levels, which has come to be perceived as changing warfare. This popular perception is that with the rise of asymmetric warfare, conventional warfare had transformed from a customary and symmetric exercise into an irregular, avant-garde, asymmetric experience. In contrast to this perspective, the main argument here is that asymmetric warfare is not a new genus of war that has “risen” in the twentieth century as a distinct revolution in military affairs, but rather, asymmetric warfare is a perennial characteristic of warfare, or set of distinct conflict dynamics in warfare that occasionally surface out of asymmetric strength between opponents in war.

The US response to terrorism after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, marked a major departure in its policy since before then, terrorism was handled as a law enforcement issue with hardly a strategy in place. The aftermath shock still determines the forging of policies for counterterrorism. By 2003 the official position of the United States was set by framing the threat as a war against ‘terrorism of global reach. The implications of which was clear: The United States could not lose. Though US had declared war on social problems such as poverty and drugs in the past, for the first time terrorism became the major threat to national security and therefore the solution involved the use of military force with victory as the outcome. It should be noted that the word ‘war’ was both a diagnostic and a prescription. This paper summarizes and assesses the US Strategy for combating terrorism as it has evolved over the years from 2003 to 2011, focusing on the changes in the US approach to and understanding of counterterrorism within both the domestic and international environment. In order to fully assess the changes, the following shall be discussed below: nature of war and the enemy, the ends, ways and means of the strategies.

When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred the United States responded in a manner which was seen as a traditional reaction to such an attack; it used its overwhelming superior military to invade the nation of Afghanistan. As Afghanistan was the operating base of the terrorist group responsible for the attacks, Al Qaeda, the invasion all but destroyed the group's operating capacity. But in response to the United States' apparent victory the terrorists have re-organized themselves into a looser confederation and turned to alternative methods of finance and operation. One could say that the success of the American military's answer to the September 11th attacks have created a new environment in which terrorists currently operate. This includes the use of the internet, unconventional alliances with international criminal organizations, as well the inception of the "lone wolf" terrorist. Faced with these new type of threats, the United States and its allies must find a way to identify and deal with them.

Conventional warfare that is prolonged and resource intensive is not sustainable and eventually leads to descent into attrition type warfare. Irregular warfare operations, be it COIN or counter-terrorism, from the Western perspective consume time and resources. This consumption is predominantly fuelled by the asymmetry of Western and insurgent forces which results in significantly different tactics being used by the two forces. Western powers, in almost all cases, tend to have superior technology and a larger number of forces and rely heavily on these factors during conflicts, however this perceived imbalance of power is not necessarily advantageous for the Western power. Andrew Mack discusses this idea that military superiority does not always result in victory when facing an unconventional enemy, Mack states " In such asymmetric conflicts, insurgents may gain political victory from a situation of military stalemate or even defeat." Here Mack surfaces the idea of 'political capital' and argues that insurgents' ability to win wars stems from "...the progressive attrition of their opponents' political capability to wage war." This concept is solidified if we observe the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, after having a Western military presence in the nation for over ten years, public support has declined and it is no longer politically viable to continue operations in that theatre. Insurgents continue to function in this state and the threat of

Cyber security is a major concern for every department, business, and citizen of the United States because technology impacts every aspect of our daily lives. The more we use technology the more complacent, we get with the information that is stored within our cyber networks. The more complacent, we get, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-attacks because we fail to update the mechanisms that safeguard our information. Breaches to security networks are detrimental to personal, economic, and national security information. Many countries, like Russia, China, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, now have the abilities and technology to launch cyber-attacks on the United States. In the last five years there have been several attacks on cyber systems to gain access to information maintained by major businesses and the United States Government. Cyber-attacks cause serious harm to the United States’ economy, community, and the safety, so we need to build stronger cyber security mechanisms. Based on my theoretical analysis, I recommend the following:

As a direct consequence of September 11, a number of substantial challenges lie ahead in the area of counter-terrorism..   The most prominent of these is the changing nature of the terrorism phenomenon.  In past years, when terrorism was largely the product of direct state sponsorship, policymakers were able to diminish prospects for the United States becoming a target using a combination of diplomatic and military instruments to deter potential state sponsors.  Today, however, many terrorist organizations and individuals act independently from former and present state sponsors, shifting to other sources of support, including the development of transnational networks.

The Federal Government needs to create information systems which are more effective shielded systems to protect their assets and resources at home. The foundation of any mandated cybersecurity strategies that secure our nation national security must incorporate worldwide or state local threats whether targeted toward the federal government or the private sector forces. The OPM breach highlighted the insufficient and inconsistence security approaches the federal government has already used in modernizing the existing cybersecurity policies. There is a requirement for the United States government to institute polices that would incorporate and implement new government cybersecurity structures and centralized the protection of their assets to avert future breaches (Source). Examining the inadequacies in the current national cybersecurity policies and regulations is disappointing as OPM choice to implement these mechanisms and the current authoritative propositions to cybersecurity must change immediately. It was reported that OPM only spent $2 million in 2015 to avert pernicious digital assaults, while the Department of Agriculture spent $39 million. The Department of Commerce, Department of Education, and Department of Labor likewise invested more money in cybersecurity resources than the Office of Personnel Management. The Small Business Administration devoted a similar amount into cybersecurity to recognizing, examining, and alleviate any cyber breaches as OPM, however

In the previous five years, cybersecurity has turned into the most looked for after calling around the world. More than 90 percent of respondents to an overview directed by the Ponemon Institute (2011) detailed being a casualty to cyberattacks amid the most recent year, costing all things considered more than $2 million for each association. This number keeps on ascending as the two programmers and security devices progress. As indicated by PwC, roughly 33% of all U.S. organizations are as of now utilizing digital protection (Lindros and Tittel, 2016).

The “asymmetry” in asymmetric warfare is an inherently relational concept. It refers to an irregular conflict that is distinct by the relative dissimilarity between opponents’ in battle. The asymmetry is derived from the character of warfare and dictated by the difference in relational power amid warring sides. This asymmetry has tended to be in terms of status and organization; means and resources, goals and objectives; and strategies and tactics. The relationship between the belligerents in almost all conflicts has varied in many tactical, strategic and operational levels.

From the advent of the Internet, there came with it the opportunity for any of its users to have access to any information they seeked right at their fingertips. With this access; entertainment, market opportunities, educational information, productivity, and global communication were able to grow and flourish, however with these gains seen came with it the weakening of the once secure national strength seen in nations. In the last two decades cyberspace has been defined as the 'fifth battleground’ for international relations, with the aspects of cyber war, cyber terrorism, and cybercrime as some of the largest threats to the security of the national and international community. (Popović, 2013) With this ‘fifth battleground’ of the cyberspace thrown into the international battlegrounds of old, its effectiveness and effect on the both the modern state and the international bodies of the world, posing the question of how will this increased accessibility to the cyberspace will affect national security in the coming years?

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the article Cyber Threats to Mobile Phones, phones are now sharing hardware and software similar to a PC and becoming each time more like a PC. Therefore, the risks of being hacked are increasing, allowing hackers to attack mobile devices the same way as if they were doing it with a regular PC. Personal and professional information are more often stored on mobile devices therefore it is imperative to have our data secure. Security solutions for mobile devices are not as broad or high-tech as those for PCs. The majority of mobile security relies on the proper use and smart choices that the user makes on a daily basis to be protected against cyber attacks. Even the most careful person can be attacked but the possibilities of that happening are less when you are proactive.

Many people today are familiar with the Internet and its use. A large number of its users however, are not aware of the security problems they face when using the Internet. Most users feel they are anonymous when on-line, yet in actuality they are not. There are some very easy ways to protect the user from future problems. The Internet has brought many advantages to its users but has also created some major problems. Most people believe that they are anonymous when they are using the Internet. Because of this thinking, they are not careful with what they do and where they go when on the "net." Security is a major issue with the Internet because the general public now has access to it. When only the