Feeling the HEAT
The HEAT being in this case High-End Asymmetric Threats.
Two examples of HEAT in recent news.
First, writing in his column at Foreign Policy, Josh Rogin tabulated the ten worst Chinese cyber attacks on the United States, at least the ten worst known to the public. Making the list were attacks that penetrated and stole vast amounts of data from U.S. military laboratories, the State Department, NASA, the Naval War College, and the Joint Strike Fighter division of Lockheed Martin. Rogin specifically implicates the Chinese government in these attacks.
Today’s New York Times featured an article on a cyber war game recently conducted by the U.S. government. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn led the exercise with the top unified commanders participating. According to the article, the exercise resulted in confusion and paralysis among the decision makers.
Another high-end asymmetric worry is the global positioning satellite network. Last week, General Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, the service responsible for operating the GPS system, advised the U.S. military to reduce its reliance on GPS. He said the system remains vulnerable and war planners and commanders should not expect it to function during a war. Schwartz’s warnings come after many decades of proliferation of GPS receivers across the military, which now seem present on every airplane, ship, boat, vehicle, soldier, missile, and bomb.
To indicate to potential adversaries that they do not possess leverage over U.S. military operations in this regard, perhaps U.S. Joint Forces Command planners should organize large joint “no GPS” training exercises and invite outsiders to observe. But only after they are sure U.S. military forces could pull off such a thing.
