05/13/2021 News & Commentary – National Security
News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.
1. Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity
2. FACT SHEET: President Signs Executive Order Charting New Course to Improve the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Protect Federal Government Networks
3. Joint CISA-FBI Cybersecurity Advisory on DarkSide Ransomware | CISA
4. How China Views the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
5. Colonial Pipeline: The DarkSide Strikes (Congressional Research Service)
6. Over 130 US personnel ‘targeted in suspected directed-energy attacks’
7. US government has no answer to attack on pipeline
8. Echoes from the Age of Darkness – Time to Confront China’s Xi
9. Trump appointee gives rare endorsement to successor chosen by Biden
10. China increases foreign influence efforts on U.S. by 500%
11. White House Weighs Evacuating Afghans as Time Runs Out
12. Pentagon List of Extremism Experts Includes Anti-Muslim and Conservative Christian Groups
13. The US Navy has its own helicopter squadron dedicated to supporting special-operations missions
14. Shake Off the Pentagon’s Industrial-Age Bureaucracy
15. Explosions and Crashes Echo Loss for an “Afghan Hand” by Jack McCain
16. DemTech | China’s Public Diplomacy Operations: Understanding Engagement and Inauthentic Amplification of PRC Diplomats on Facebook and Twitter
17. Bernie Sanders wants to cut defense spending. Not all Democrats agree.
18. White House Aims To Beef Up Nation’s Cybersecurity After Pipeline Hack
19. Lawmakers Scold Pentagon for Leaving Afghanistan Without ‘Over-the-Horizon’ Plan
20. The first Asian American to command a U.S. battalion
1. Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity
White House • May 12, 2021 • PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS
2. FACT SHEET: President Signs Executive Order Charting New Course to Improve the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Protect Federal Government Networks
White House • May 12, 2021 • STATEMENTS AND RELEASES
Two points.
Why weren’t many of these actions implemented years ago? I guess we have the Russian criminal gang to thank for pushing us to take some action.
Speaking of action, what this EO does not discuss are actions taken to punish attackers. I suppose those actions should be ina classified EO and a classified playbook. But we need to know how our government is going to respond to cyber attacks across spectrum from criminals to nation states.
Excerpts: “Specifically, the Executive Order the President is signing today will:
Remove Barriers to Threat Information Sharing Between Government and the Private Sector.
Modernize and Implement Stronger Cybersecurity Standards in the Federal Government.
Improve Software Supply Chain Security.
Establish a Cybersecurity Safety Review Board.
Create a Standard Playbook for Responding to Cyber Incidents.
Improve Detection of Cybersecurity Incidents on Federal Government Networks.
Improve Investigative and Remediation Capabilities.
3. Joint CISA-FBI Cybersecurity Advisory on DarkSide Ransomware | CISA
4. How China Views the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
warontherocks.com · by Yun Sun · May 13, 2021
Excerpt: Broadly speaking, China’s reaction to American troops withdrawal from Afghanistan is complicated. In the short term, Beijing is concerned that without the U.S. military, Afghanistan will soon descend into chaos and will inevitably serve as a haven for Islamic extremism. But in the long run, the Chinese policy community remains deeply skeptical of U.S. intentions, and it assumes the United States will retain and use its influence in Afghanistan to advance its interests. Moreover, Beijing fears that the United States — freed from its on-the-ground military commitment in Afghanistan — will now use the country to undermine China’s regional position and key interests.
5. Colonial Pipeline: The DarkSide Strikes (Congressional Research Service)
Congressional Research Reports
The 3 page report can be reached at the link.
6. Over 130 US personnel ‘targeted in suspected directed-energy attacks’
Daily Mail · by Adam Schrader · May 13, 2021
There seems to be only one person arguing the science does not back up this type of “weapon” Cheryl Rofer). If that is true all these cases must be a “coincidence.” But I would attribute all of these to coincidence.
7. US government has no answer to attack on pipeline
asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · May 13, 2021
Excerpts: “In the bigger picture, US intelligence says that foreign governments – eg, China, Russia, Iran and others – are either directly running cyber operations against outside targets or getting hackers to do it for them.
Even going back to the earliest computer hacks, Clifford Stoll reported in his book The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (1989), that a hacker in Bremen, Germany, had penetrated the computer system of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was seeking classified US Defense Department information. The Bremen hacker was working for the KGB.
Today hostile governments can afford to set up large and sophisticated cyber-spying operations or use those operations to cripple an adversary. This is something that the Chinese have tried to do against Taiwan, the Russians against the United States, the Ukraine and select European countries such as Estonia and Iran, have used cyber methods to attack Israel.
Many cyberattacks are designed to steal intellectual property. China ripped off Lockheed and Lockheed’s suppliers to steal information on the design of the F-35 fighter. Iran has used cyber espionage to steal intellectual property from hundreds of universities and private companies.
Despite government and industry spending hundreds of billions of dollars on computer security, most computer systems and networks remain dangerously exposed to cyber-attacks, including ransomware.
Worst still, as the Colonial Pipeline case underlines, the government including law enforcement doesn’t know what to do when a major disruptive intrusion happens. This is especially worrisome because the entire critical infrastructure could be collapsed by a determined adversary and Washington would just be scratching its head, as it is now.
8. Echoes from the Age of Darkness – Time to Confront China’s Xi
cepa.org · by Walter Clemens · May 12, 2021
Excerpt: Xi’s actions at home and abroad pose the same challenges in the 21st century as totalitarian states posed in the last century. Dangers loom even as the world needs great power collaboration to tap the best of modern science and cope with nuclear weapons, climate change and pandemics. The United States walks a tightrope between the imperatives of global interdependence and the need to contain aggression. Confronting a similar dilemma when Imperial Japan seized Manchuria, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson in 1932 issued what is known as the Stimson Doctrine. It declared that the United States will never recognize political or territorial changes made by force of arms. Most League of Nations members followed suit. Reiterating the Stimson Doctrine would provide a constructive response to the expansionist claims of Vladimir Putin as well as Xi Jinping.
9. Trump appointee gives rare endorsement to successor chosen by Biden
NBC News · by Courtney Kube · May 12, 2021
I would say that this is what national security professionals do. They make objective assessments of abilities and do not rely on partisan stances.
Excerpts: “While Washington and the country remain divided along partisan lines, McCarthy said his endorsement is not about politics, but about what is best for the Army.
“We need to get the wind at her back,” he said. “Making her successful is in everybody’s best interest.”
10. China increases foreign influence efforts on U.S. by 500%
Axios · by Lachlan Markay
Can there be any doubt about Chinese capabilities and intent? The revisionist and rogue powers are leading with influence.
My thoughts:
Problem
We face threats from political warfare strategies supported by hybrid military approaches.
Solution:
Learn to lead with influence
Learn to counter and conduct political warfare campaigns
Great Power Competition:
•Competition equals Political Warfare
- Most likely
•State on state warfare less likely
- Most dangerous
•We must be able to operate in the modern era of the Gray Zone and Political Warfare – Irregular Warfare
•But we must also support major theater state on state war – not either/or but both/and
Views on Warfare
•What is the major difference in the views of conflict, strategy, and campaigning between China, Russia, Iran, nK, AQ, and ISIS and the US?
–The psychological takes precedence and may or may not be supported with the kinetic
–Politics is war by other means
–For the US kinetic is first and the psychological is second
–War is politics by other means
•Napoleon: In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one
•In the 21st Century the psychological is to the kinetic as ten is to one
•The US has to learn to put the psychological first
–Can a federal democratic republic “do strategy” this way
–Or is it only autocratic, totalitarian dictatorships that can “do strategy” this way?
•An American Way of Political Warfare: A Proposal https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE300/PE304/RAND_PE304.pdf
Bottom Line:
•Irregular Warfare is the military contribution to Political Warfare
•Political Warfare is a whole of government (and society?) effort at the national level integrating all instruments of national power toward an acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance U.S national security interests around the world
•
•Political warfare is Statecraft
–Some would call it “Irregular Statecraft.”
11. White House Weighs Evacuating Afghans as Time Runs Out
Bloomberg · by Jennifer Jacobs · May 12, 2021
April 1975.
12. Pentagon List of Extremism Experts Includes Anti-Muslim and Conservative Christian Groups
The Intercept · by Ken Klippenstein · May 12, 2021
Excerpts: “In a phone interview with The Intercept, Berry said he was not aware of his inclusion in the military working group’s list of experts. He also expressed concerns about respecting service members’ constitutional rights. “Eliminating extremism from the military is certainly a noble goal but it’s going to be important that we have a good definition of what extremism is such that we protect constitutional rights,” Berry said.
While it is unclear which of the individuals or groups mentioned in the Pentagon document will end up consulting, there are signs that some already have been doing so. Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, thanked the Army War College for inviting him to speak on extremism in tweets posted yesterday.
The Pentagon, MEMRI, and the ADL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
13. The US Navy has its own helicopter squadron dedicated to supporting special-operations missions
Business Insider · by Miguel Ortiz
Some damn fine pilots. Had the honor of working with these professionals in Asia.
14. Shake Off the Pentagon’s Industrial-Age Bureaucracy
defenseone.com · by Dan Ward
Culture and bureaucracy are the two most difficult things to change.
15. Explosions and Crashes Echo Loss for an “Afghan Hand” by Jack McCain
thewarhorse.org · by Jack McCain · May 12, 2021
An excellent article from someone I am proud to call a friend. Jack was a student in my unconventional warfare class at Georgetown. I would have recruited him into Special Forces if he had not already been a Naval aviator. He knows the indigenous approach and working through, with, and by our friends, partners, and allies.
16. DemTech | China’s Public Diplomacy Operations: Understanding Engagement and Inauthentic Amplification of PRC Diplomats on Facebook and Twitter
The 41 page report can be downloaded here.
17. Bernie Sanders wants to cut defense spending. Not all Democrats agree.
Defense News · by Joe Gould · May 12, 2021
Senator Sanders is dangerous for defense and US national security. That said I do acknowledge (as we all should) the Pentagon has many challenges in procurement and acquisition and budget management. We do need reforms in a number of areas.
18. White House Aims To Beef Up Nation’s Cybersecurity After Pipeline Hack
defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker
19. Lawmakers Scold Pentagon for Leaving Afghanistan Without ‘Over-the-Horizon’ Plan
defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher
I have to believe we have conducted long term planning and there are planners who have long been analyzing all possible courses of action. We must have anticipated the decision to withdraw and looked at various contingencies. We must have conducted planning for what comes next. I have to believe that.
20. The first Asian American to command a U.S. battalion
wearethemighty.com · by Miguel Ortiz · May 10, 2021
The story of a great American hero. We should all be inspired by his life. He represents all that is good and great about America.
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“Only the truth which was acquired by your own thinking, through the efforts of your intellect, becomes a member of your own body, and only this truth really belongs to us.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
“When you carry your burden, you should know that it is good for you to have it. Make the best of this burden and take from it everything which is necessary for your intellectual life, as your stomach takes from food everything necessary for your flesh, or as fire burns brighter after you put some wood on it.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
– Isaac Asimov, Foundation