The cyberwar of all against all

Written on March 17th, 2017 in politics Comments Off

Published on english hankyoreh.co.kr, by John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus, March 14, 2017.

The political theorist Thomas Hobbes warned in the 17th century that without the modern state and its sovereign control of territory, humanity would slip back into a state of nature in which violence was uncontrolled and ever-present. “A war of all against all” would break out, he wrote, in which neighbor would turn against neighbor. States would continue to fight one another, but a measure of stability would reign at the level of society … //

… The latest information about U.S. attempts to disrupt North Korea’s nuclear program carries with it several very important implications:

  • First, the Obama administration launched the initiative because it recognized that traditional missile defense was ineffectual. “Flight tests of interceptors based in Alaska and California had an overall failure rate of 56 percent, under near-perfect conditions,” The New York Times noted. “Privately, many experts warned the system would fare worse in real combat.”
  • Second, the cyberwarfare against North Korea has also basically failed. Despite the numerous failed tests, Pyongyang managed to put together a series of successful launches over the last year, including three medium-range rockets.
  • Third, cyberspace has become an increasingly dangerous place. Countries have developed the capacity not only to disrupt military operations but also to sabotage civilian infrastructure and paralyze an economy, as South Korea discovered in 2013 when an attack brought down several banks and broadcasters. This kind of warfare doesn’t have any international rules of engagement, like the Geneva Conventions or what the United Nations has developed over the years … //

… It’s time for the United States to apply the same lessons to North Korea. Negotiations and verifiable agreements are far more effective than threats and efforts at disruption.

And before cyberattacks truly spill out of control and the international community descends into a war of all against all, Washington should sit down with other countries to hammer out some rules of conduct. Otherwise, North Korea’s nuclear program will be the least of our problems.

(full text).

(The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh. Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]).

Links:

1917, the View from the Streets, leaflets of the Russian revolution, on John Riddell:
Soldiers, take power into your own hands, March 14, 2017 – #7: your representatives and worker deputies should become the people’s Provisional Revolutionary Government;
For a general strike against autocracy, March 12, 2017 – #6;
Women’s Day in Russia 1917, March 6, 2017 – #5;

For Refugee High Schoolers in Boston, a Vision of America the Normal, on The Progressive.org, by Emily Kaplan, March 15, 2017;

Why Everyone Needs to Know What Happened to Sixteen-Year-Old Kalief Browder, on The Progressive.org, by José Luis Vilson, March 14, 2017: … a New York teen arrested and jailed for years on Rikers Island. Browder awaited trial for three years after he was accused of stealing a backpack. Of those three years, he spent almost two in solitary confinement, seeing and speaking to no one for twenty-three hours a day, and suffering abuse from correction officers and other prisoners. Two years after he was released, he took his own life …;

on power, populism and the future of the EU – Yanis Varoufakis, 14.33 min, uploaded by Follow the Money, March 7, 2017 … this interview preceded the launch of the Dutch chapter of Diem25 in Paradiso, Amsterdam … subtitled in netherlands;

6 Tiny Homes under $50,000 you can buy right now, on inhabitat, by Lucy Wang, June 26, 2016;
Tiny house movement;
Tiny Houses on YouTube-search;
Tiny Houses on Wheels on Google Images-search;
How to Create a Tiny House Village, on ShareAble.net, by Cat Johnson, Feb 23, 2016;
also an excerpt on Tiny House Community, Feb 24;

… and this:

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