Cyberwar: The Next Threat to National Security & What to Do About It

by Richard A. Clarke

Imagine if the FBI announced that it had arrested dozens of Chinese government agents running around the country strapping C4 explosive charges to those big, ugly high-tension transmission line towers and to some of those unmanned step-down electric substation transformers that dot the landscape. The nation would be in an outrage. Certain Congressmen would demand that we declare war, or at least slap punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. Somebody would insist that we start calling Chinese food “liberty snacks.” Yet when the Wall Street Journal announced in a headline in April 2009 that China had planted logic bombs in the U.S. grid, there was little reaction. The difference in response is indicative mainly of the Congress, the media, and the public’s inexperience with cyber war. It is not reflective of any real distinction between the effects those logic bombs could have on the power grid, compared to what little parcels of C4 explosives might do.