On February 2 of this year Stavridis said that because of "attacks on computer networks in Estonia, Georgia, Latvia and Lithuania in the past several years," although he didn't offer either specifics on or substantiation for the claim, "the definition of protections for NATO members should be expanded."
The four countries identified as victims leave no doubt as to who Stavridis views as the perpetrator.
Addressing an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference and speaking of NATO's Article 5, he said that the "likelihood that the next conflict will start with a cyber attack rather than a physical attack highlights the importance of changing the treaty's definitions." [26]
Employing a line of reasoning that he has repeated in the interim, he said: "In NATO we need to talk about what defines an attack. In a country like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, all NATO members, what defines an attack? I believe it is more likely that an attack will come not off a bomb rack on an aircraft, but as electrons moving down a fiber optic cable. So this is a very real and germane part of this challenge that we face in the cyber war."
NATO's top military commander was also paraphrased as saying that "NATO has taken the first step toward making cyber warfare combat an international effort by standing up the Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence in 2008 in Estonia, but facing cyber threats will require cooperation among U.S. government agencies, and between governments and industry as well." [27]
In early May Stavridis delivered a speech in Paris in which he again highlighted "new threats facing NATO from cyber space" in relation to "NATO's role in combating these threats, in particular Article 5 operations and collective defence." [28]
On May 19 he appeared as the guest of honor at a special Commanders Series event at the Atlantic Council [29] in Washington, D.C., where he was introduced by Madeleine Albright two days after she had presented her Group of Experts report on NATO's 21st century global Strategic Concept in Brussels.
Stavridis boasted that NATO nations have a combined gross domestic product of $31 trillion, have over two million men and women under arms, and "130,000 soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines on missions on three different continents." The above despite the fact that "No nation has ever attacked a NATO nation." [30]
His presentation was accompanied by slides and his comments included: "I think that Secretary Albright's paper hits this exactly right. We must, as an alliance, begin to think coherently about cyber. We find here the flags of four states that have been involved in cyber intrusions. [Presumably the four former Soviet states he identified in February.] I think it's important that as an alliance, we begin to come to grips with what is a cyber attack.
"We need centers that can focus on it; we need procedures to provide defensive means in this world of cyber." [31]
Cyber defense and its inevitable correlate, cyber warfare, are integral components of Pentagon and NATO warfighting doctrine, embodied as such in the U.S.'s new Quadrennial Defense Review and in NATO's latest Strategic Concept to be formally adopted at the bloc's summit in Lisbon, Portugal this November.
Cyber warfare as an element of military operations in the other four spheres - land, air, sea and space, especially in the last - and in its own right. With the most advanced computer networks in the world and the most capable corps of cyber specialists in all realms, the world's military superpower has launched the first military cyber command.
1) Agence France-Presse, May 12, 2010
2) Associated Press, May 5, 2009
3) U.S. Department of Defense, May 21, 2010
4) Financial Times, January 31, 2010
5) U.S. Strategic Command
http://www.stratcom.mil/about
6) Stars and Stripes, May 22, 2010
7) Air Force Times, February 19, 2010
8) Stars and Stripes, May 22, 2010
9) Air Force Times, May 19, 2010
10) Agence France-Presse, May 12, 2010
11) Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2008
12) The Telegraph, March 18, 2010
13) Agence France-Presse, March 4, 2010
14) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 11, 2009
15) Thousand Deadly Threats: Third Millennium NATO, Western Businesses Collude
On New Global Doctrine
Stop NATO, October 2, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/thousand-deadly-threats-third-millennium-nato-western-businesses-collude-on-new-global-doctrine
16) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 11, 2009
17) Defense News, June 8, 2009
18) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 11, 2009
19) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, May 17, 2010
20) Aviation Week, May 18, 2010
21) Defense News, March 23, 2010
22) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February 22, 2010
23) Agence France-Presse, April 24, 2010
24) Ibid
25) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, April 23, 2010
26) Defense News, February 2, 2010
27) Ibid
28) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
May 7, 2010
29) Atlantic Council: Securing The 21st Century For NATO
Stop NATO, April 30, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/atlantic-council-securing-the-21st-century-for-nato
30) Atlantic Council, May 19, 2010
31) Ibid
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