Context
Since the first leaks of Wikileaks, the disclosure of classified information, from one source or the other, has become a norm. The founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange has since been castrated for his revelations, including Bradley Manning, the source of the treasure-trove.

PoliTact has previously noted the impact of the leaked classified cables on the conduct of international relations; it exposed the duplicitous public and private conduct of the states in question, including Pakistan. In addition to the other causes, the insights revealed by Wikileaks also became the motivation behind Arab awakening. The impact of social media in stimulating the Arab revolt continues to be a theme for further research.

Now the Edward Snowden episode has shaken the US and its relations with the world once more. The dent is considerably larger than is generally perceived. In the long run, the causality is the trust between states, essential for the conduct of diplomacy.

Not only that, the central role of technology in the conduct of surveillance has shaken the premise that free flow of information is generally a benign activity. The public confidence on the tech giants complicit in these monitoring activities is certainly going to take a hit. The Snowden disclosures have literally put the ‘global village’ vision of the future world at risk.

Analysis

Many of these government sponsored international surveillance actions have showcased how far a state actor can go to address its security concerns or to gain a competitive advantage, but without due consideration to the long-term implications. Furthermore, these activities have also blurred the traditional lines on who to consider a friend and a foe.

Pakistan-US Ties

Consider for example the operation to get Osama Bin Laden conducted in May 2011. The report prepared by Pakistan’s commission that was investigating the event was leaked to Aljazeera last week. The leaked report does not seem to contain any earth shattering information. In any event, while US attained its objective during the mission, its not clear if the long lasting damage the operation caused to US-Pakistan ties was considered at the time. The American operation may have played a crucial role in Pakistan’s decisive strategic tilt towards China, which is indicative from moves like handing over the Gwadar port to China.

If the decision to conduct the operation was made despite the heavy costs for Pak-US ties, this does not bode well for the future prospects of the relation. The mistrust between the two countries is still so high that all public and private contacts and initiatives are overshadowed by and mired in suspicion.

The operation created many problems for ngos that are genuinely conducting critical education, health, and disaster relief related work around the world. Other than a symbolic win, it’s not clear what benefit was derived in eliminating Osama in such a fashion.

US-Latin America Ties

On the other hand, the Snowden affair has taken on a truly multidimensional angle. The plane of President Evo Morales of Bolivia was forced to land in Austria on July 2ndafter having denied entrance in to the airspace for Austria, Spain, France, and Portugal. The president was returning to Bolivia from a visit to Russia, where Snowden is also holed up and from where he has applied for asylum in a number of countries. Media reports indicate US officials suspected the plane was carrying Snowden and asked European authorities to intervene.

As retaliation for this high profile humiliation, the leaders of South American countries belonging to Mercosur trade bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay) have decided to withdraw their ambassadors from the European countries involved in interfering with the flight of the Bolivian president.

“The gravity of the incident – indicative of a neocolonial mindset – constitutes an unfriendly and hostile act, which violates human rights and impedes freedom of travel, as well as the treatment and immunity appropriate to a head of state,” the Mercosur nations laid out in the joint statement.

US-European Ties

According to the Snowden revelations, even European allies and European Union were not spared from the extensive Internet monitoring and spying, and their embassies and missions were targeted in the US. The reaction has been especially severe from privacy sensitive Germany where Angela Merkel raised the issue herself with president Obama. The whole episode reminds one of Cold War days. Other information that is now surfacing suggests that the intelligence organizations of UK, other European nations, and US, collaborated on many of the data mining and collection efforts related to the war on terror.

And, the reference here is not towards cyber threats where an individual or a state uses information technology to steal sensitive information from the computer networks of another state or entity, or tries to implant a virus to inhibit it. This has come to be known as cyber warfare and China and US seem fully engaged in it presently. Chairman of Pakistan’s Senate’s Defence Committee, Mushahid Hussain Syed recently proposed a 7-point plan to ensure cyber security for Pakistan.

Conclusion

This all fits in with what renowned futurist Alvin Toffler wrote in ‘Power Shift’ referring to knowledge as increasingly a source of power and not just wealth. The dilemma is that while a snippet of information may not have any value for one, but it may be the missing link for another player. This falls under the realm of what is known as information management, which is the methodological categorizing and collection of certain pieces of information using technology, for the purpose of creating knowledge. Towards what end, is a different question. In layman terms, this is often referred to these days as connecting the dots.

What Snowden affair further reveals is that security concerns have overwritten the privacy sensitivities or whatever other sovereign rights a state may have enjoyed. This will ultimately impact economic ties and impede online activity. The pursuit of information superiority is directly conflicting with the present order of the world, leading to more mistrust, and potentially less free flow of information and ideas.

The post Wikileaks, Snowden, And Free Flow of Information appeared first on Politact.

Context

While most defense and security analysts are still focused on the traditional threats that emanate from the sea, land, air, and recently space, a new kind of risk has finally dawned. It has to do with risks of attacks that originate in the cyberspace. Moreover, while the threats posed by the terrorists involve physical action, in terms of where the attacks are planned and where they are carried out. Cyber attacks can be launched virtually and the results can be equally devastating if not deadly. Moreover, it’s technologically difficult to ascertain who the attackers were and thus difficulty in attribution creates unique challenges.

Like the use of drones, cyber warfare is also on the increase, especially between China and US. While China is increasingly in the limelight for stealing secrets from US firms, the Stuxnet operation revealed US and Israel have also carried out cyber assaults. Reportedly, the Stuxnet virus seriously impeded Iranian progress towards acquiring nuclear capability.

The struggle for access to information and knowledge, and being able to control and influence it, has become an essential part of what has come to be known as information warfare, and cyberspace is an important battlefield where powerful international actors are waging it.

With growing dependence on the Internet, protecting the infrastructure and networks that facilitate millions of information-based transactions that occur in the cyber space, has emerged as the most important arena of the future warfare. There are four associated areas of this new battlefield: strategic cyber-war, cyber-espionage, cyber-disruption, and cyber-terrorism.

Strategic cyber-war involves the direct attack on the infrastructure of the enemy. On the other hand, cyber-espionage is more prevalent and is used to illegally steal secret information that has commercial and military value. Cyber-disruption is manifested through denial of service or inability to access important websites.

Analysis

The American Cyber Strategy

A newly released US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has confirmed that China is America’s most serious cyber threat. Therefore, US is shifting its focus on beefing up cyber security to prevent not only the extremists from exploiting the vulnerabilities but to also protect against industrial espionage from countries like China.

In June 2011, former American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had commented, “The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber-attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems.”

With cyber attacks becoming increasingly frequent against government networks, during his first term, President Barack Obama approved guidelines that determine the parameters of the military response against the perpetrators of a cyber attack or espionage. The White House formulated its first ever wide-ranging cyber strategy in 2011 that focused on seven major policy priorities.

The International Strategy for Cyberspace aims to promote a more secure, open, reliable and interoperable cyber environment and stresses the need for a global alliance to maintain online freedoms and to impede cyber crime. The new strategy is being seen as part of the US administration’s aggressive initiatives to define the Internet’s future amid contending plans such as the one presented by China, Russia and Iran, which involve greater control.

The US will consider the use of conventional weapons to respond to any cyber attack, according to this new strategy. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response. All appropriate options would be on the table,” Pentagon spokesperson Colonel Dave Lapan had commented in 2011. The move had come after computer network of Lockheed Martin was hacked and defense secrets were stolen in 2011.

The Chinese Cyber Strategy

In response to US Cyber strategy, Chinese analysts have countered that the Americans are aiming to reinforce its dominant position in the cyber space by devising new rules and standards. The Pentagon’s first official cyber strategy is highly dangerous, with likely consequences of weapons races and even armed conflicts between nations, a Chinese military analyst had warned.

The allegations came after Google accused Chinese officials of attempting to hack Google email accounts belonging to US officials, government offices, politicians, journalists, and activists – a claim denied by China. Instead, Beijing asserts that America is using online tactics to bring about regime change in Arab nations and claims it has evidence that the cyber assaults originated in the US.

Some recent examples of cyber warfare have come in the form of ‘Stuxnet’ and ‘Flame’ viruses. Flame reportedly was used to map and monitor Iran’s computer networks. The flame virus had an extraordinary data-snatching capability and could eavesdrop on unsuspecting computer users by manipulating its audio system and listen to office conversations and Skype calls. In the Middle East, Saudi national oil company Aramco came under a serious cyber attack in August last year, allegedly from Iran, that damaged more than 30,000 computers. Reportedly, the attempt was to dent the Saudi oil and gas production.

Conclusion

In essence, we are entering a peculiar stage of the cyber war. The present free flow of information on the information highway appears to be in tension with security measures nations are being forced to adopt as part of the unraveling cyber warfare.

Facing multitudes of threats, Iran for example has decided to develop its own Internet. The functionality of this Iranian Internet can be thought of as an Intranet that a company would have for its employees.

The most damning aspect of this model is that it exists disjointedly from the central Internet, and thus it would no longer be the free flow of information that we otherwise think of when we talk of Internet. There are fears if other nations facing similar security threats may adopt a comparable approach. The parallel here is similar to if a country was to adopt protectionism in its economic posture, which is the antithesis of globalization.

While global economic cooperation and trade are already being impacted by security concerns, if norms around cyber warfare are not agreed by international actors, the free flow of information via the Internet may at some point become the next causality.

The post The Future of Cyber Space; Free Flow Versus Control appeared first on Politact.