Arguably by their very nature, cyber security issues are among the most amorphous, nebulous and ethereal threats that can be devised (and concocted) and as such are characterized by near universal applicability and the effective impossibility of being disproven. An indispensable arrow in the Pentagon's and NATO's collective quiver, then.
In the speech cited above, former NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer specifically addressed the matter of cyber security, demanding that NATO "should consider drawing on the unique capabilities that already exist in our military and look to build on them. They could, for example, form a rapid response service to support Allies and perhaps even partners in the event of an attack. And given the vital role that space and satellites now play within our cyber networks, should we not also start to follow activities in space more closely and consider the implications for our security?" [16]
In June of last year U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, former National Security Council staffer currently on loan from the Brookings Institution, also tested the waters on whether the Alliance's Article 5 war clause should be activated in response to "energy strangulation" or "a cyber or bio attack of unknown origin." [17]
"Energy strangulation" - that is, the accusation of energy cutoffs to Europe - is inevitably coupled with charges of cyber attacks in Europe and both are in exclusive reference to Russia. For example, in Scheffer's recommendation of last year on the application of NATO's Article 5 for cyber and space use he added this:
"The disruption of a country's energy supply can destroy the economic and
social fabric of a country in a way that resembles a war - yet without a
single shot being fired. It is therefore vital that NATO defines what added
value it can bring, for example in terms of protecting critical infrastructure or securing chokepoints through which supply lines run." [18]
In her May 17 remarks to NATO's North Atlantic Council on the new Strategic Concept, Madeleine Albright stated that "NATO must maintain a flexible mix of military capabilities, including conventional, nuclear, and missile defense" and laid stress on "the primacy of Article 5," which stipulates that "the Alliance must continue to treat collective defense as its core purpose."
Among threats justifying the activation of Article 5 are "cyber assaults
and attacks on energy infrastructure and supply lines." [19] Her group's report demands that NATO "accelerate efforts to respond to the danger of cyber-attacks by protecting its own communications and command systems, helping allies to improve their ability to prevent and recover from attacks, and developing an array of cyber-defense capabilities aimed at effective detection and deterrence." [20]
Anticipating the Pentagon's William Lynn by two months, NATO's Director of Policy Planning Jamie Shea said that "120 countries currently have or are developing offensive cyber attack capabilities, which is now viewed as the fifth dimension of warfare after space, sea, land and air...."
On March 22 "Shea said there are people in the strategic community who say cyber attacks now will serve the same role in initiating hostilities as air campaigns played in the 20th century." [21]
Shortly after this year's presidential election in Ukraine, the country became the first non-NATO member to be recruited for cyber defense cooperation with the North Atlantic military bloc. "On 11-12 February 2010, cyber defence experts from Ukraine, NATO and Allied countries participated in the first NATO-Ukraine Expert Staff Talks on Cyber Defence in Kyiv." [22]
NATO's pioneer project in this area, though, remains its cyber warfare center in Estonia. The operation's experts "second-guess potential adversaries, gazing into what they dub the 'fifth battlespace', after land, sea, air and space."
Colonel Ilmar Tamm, the top Estonian military official at the site, was quoted late last month claiming "Definitely from the cyber-space perspective, I think we've gone further than we imagined in science fiction." [23]
Estonian Defence Minister Jaak Aaviksoo spoke with Agence France-Presse about events in 2007 and the present, saying "It clearly heralded the beginning of a new era....It had all the characteristics of cyber-crime growing into a national security threat. It was a qualitative change, and that clicked in very many heads. Cyber-security, cyber-defence and cyber-offence are here to stay. This is a fact of life." [24]
On April 23, the second day of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in the Estonian capital, a memorandum of understanding was signed which "creates a legal framework for cyber defence cooperation between NATO and Estonia. It will facilitate the exchange of information and provide means for create a mechanism for assistance in case of cyber attacks.
"The agreement was signed on behalf of NATO by Amb. Claudio Bisogniero, Deputy Secretary General...." [25]
The individual who personifies the organic and inextricable connection between the Pentagon and NATO is the one who simultaneously heads up U.S. European Command and is NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, from General Dwight Eisenhower in 1951 to Admiral James Stavridis currently.
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