Readiness for China’s Cyber Weapons
Funny how the lens of War changes everything. At this point in history, the United States (which invented a large portion of modern electronics) is threatened by China (who is seeking to exploit this system of electronics). It is not clear if China and Russia are working in concert, but they are discovering a) There is a new generation of electronics that can rather easily threaten the old one and b) Western nations are rather easy to coopt using electronic social media (while their own population is fed propaganda). Frighteningly, Western Nations are falling behind in tech education and action, but there are chances for us to “catch up”.
These issues are complex (and I don’t pretend to be an expert in all of them), but simply put, China is developing an edge in cyberwarfare while the US and Western allies are suffering from overconfidence, internal dissension (in part driven by Chinese hacking), and a lack of homegrown high-tech talent. The word is that China has developed electronic weaponry that can disable satellites, missiles, communications, and infrastructure, while having their own satellites protected via quantum messaging. Alas, this not only questions whether Western Democracy can win WW III, but whether Democracy can defeat Autocracy. It calls to mind similar competitions in history (particularly Athens vs. Sparta, or even G.O.T.s “House of Winterfell vs House of Lannister” as we shall see).
The concern is that while the U.S. and Allies have the current advantage in military hardware, the Chinese (and to a lesser degree Russians) are developing cyber weapons that could disable not only our weapons, but our infrastructure. To begin, China has recently surpassed the U.S. in the development of supercomputers (also made with exclusively Chinese made microprocessor chips), thus developing more powers of encryption and code-breaking. Second, China is among the leaders in science and math education worldwide (while we were 20th and 27th, respectively in 2015). Third, though one could argue that we currently have more/better weaponry, China is already positioned to make “smarter” weapons that could disable ours. It is launching more satellites that are better protected, and in more complex orbits, some called “quantum-crypto satellites” that are supposed to be “invulnerable to hacking” (quantum-crypto uses photons and is a work in progress, as the light must be focused through the atmosphere using adaptive optics, which is difficult). Meanwhile, they have already demonstrated an ability to hack our infrastructure and social networks, and are positioning to hack our military hardware. They are capable of disrupting guidance systems for missiles, drones, and F15s by disrupting satellites and GPS. They may be able to steal or change launch and guidance codes, which are currently rather poorly protected. China is getting prepared, as President Xi-Jinping has quoted ancient strategist Sun-Tzu who said “Victorious warriors win first, then go to war”. (McCoy,2017),(Lague,2020),(Grazier,2019)
To compete in this cyberwar, the U.S. must contemplate three things: 1) Stress the math/science and tech education of the native-born, encouraging men and women from all races/classes to get a tech education while also securing the loyalty of tech-sectors in Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East 2) Build weapons/communications that are not so dependent on Central links (ie vulnerable satellites), perhaps relying on stand-alone navigation as at least backup while beefing up satellites and stepping-up encryption and 3) build a cyber-shield for domestic infrastructure and social media, making it free from foreign interference. Yes, the latter may somewhat “infringe” upon some of our freedoms (such as when Trump was banned from Twitter) but in a wartime sense, this is understandable and necessary. As for the overdependence on central information links, I point to the movie “Independence Day” and the ease of which Will Smith/Jeff Goldblum took out the information-centralized aliens as case in point, while I believe the American “brain drain” speaks for itself.
There is also the issue of the relative expense/complexity of our weaponry in a potential conflict where the potential enemy (China) may have troops that outnumber us 4 to 1. In military lore, there is an axiom that “simplest is best”, and this rule certainly held in World War II, when Sherman M4 Tanks (like economy cars, simple to run and fix) ultimately outperformed German Panzers (heavy, complex, like expensive luxury cars). Similar examples exist for the M1 Garand (lighter, more versatile) vs. German G41 (heavy and unbalanced) and the Spitfire, which was easier to fly and more durable than the more powerful Messerschmidt Bf 109. Also legendary was the British/American “code cracking” which figured out the German Enigma Machines. In the 40s, the West generally had an advantage in higher education and “Yankee Ingenuity”, and adapted well to war with its incredible manufacturing capability. Somewhere along the line (Eisenhower’s “Beware the Military-Industrial Complex”?) greed/complacency created overly complex and expensive weaponry, which threatens our advantages. In the early 90s, we got lucky when Silicon Valley bailed out our defense system (“smart bombs” during the first Gulf War), but now other countries have caught up. Fortunately, much of the high-tech talent associated with our Country still lives among friendly Nations (mostly Southeast Asian countries with anti-PRC Chinese expats) and so it may be critical to secure alliances among these countries before China (or Russia) gobbles them up.
A huge advantage for the United States has traditionally been its distance from world hotspots, its ability to secure allies, ability to be stabile (financially and educationally), but now all of that has even been threatened by the Trump regime. At this point (as Biden begins overdue rallying of science, education, and the tech sector while cutting China/Russia off from resources and securing alliances anew), one wonders if Trump was actually working for Russia, and if Russia/China are working in concert. Judging from recent troop movements, boat and aircraft provocations, Russia/China are “testing” the abilities of the West, in advance of the real conflict (which may not happen for a few years). Trump would appear to have been a Putin puppet (due to Russian kompromat), but after a shaky beginning, a Chinese adversary. He also appears to have been led by expedience and vanity to naively lower our leadership defenses (by inviting senseless conspiracy theories) to win voters. This apparently successful coopting of the American/European “idiot-ocracy” has exposed many flaws in our system that can be exploited (apparently our lack of devotion to higher science education and a Democracy’s inability to control senseless misinformation). China/Russia have no such problems, as they control all information through the State. In theory, the West should survive this threat, as “all information is ultimately good information” which helps our advantages in diversity and solving complex problems.
The decline of the unwary democratic state has precedent. Athens was the most powerful city state (after the defeat of the Persians in 480 BC) and famously a democratic fountainhead of good governance. However, it was defeated and sacked by Sparta (a famously non-democratic society) in 406 BC as it became complacent and failed to secure the proper alliances. For you “Game of Thrones” fans, John Snow’s “House of Winterfell” is a model of virtue and fairness, yet struggles to defeat Cersei’s “House of Lannister”, mostly through the illicit use of “Wildfire” by “Hallyne the Pyromancer”. This and the “Red Wedding” goes to show that “fighting by the rules doesn’t always win”, and to be ready for duplicitous means by the would-be enemy. There is also a kind of moral decay happening in the West, which is beginning to live up to the Eastern propaganda. There is whining identity politics, conspiracy theories and racism on the powerful far-right, overly-sympathetic socialist causes on the far-left. These mostly nutty causes threaten our viabilities overseas, and makes one wonder to what degree our media/politics has been infiltrated by Russia/China for exploitation. In addition, we are now turning on people like Chinese expats and Latin Americans, the very groups that could surely help us take on Russia/China. In higher education, it has been noticeable for years that we are dependent on foreign students/H1Bs for high tech. We must both create a new generation of native-born high tech students, and “secure” the alliance of these H1Bs. Foreign-born electronics high tech, for instance, is highly represented by Taiwanese, South Korean, and Hong Kong citizenry. Rather than Trump-demonize these people in his “Kung-Flu” tradition, we need to realize that they are Southeast Asian and Chinese ex-pats loyal to our Western cause (provided we treat them fairly and don’t allow China to take them over).
The Western World is a model of freedom and expression, yet militarily it may be safe to say that we’ve gotten soft (or at least less “smart”). It is questionable if great numbers of us would even put down our protest signs long enough to fight a war, and yet we may have to fight to protect our cherished values. The upside would be that the process may bring us together in a common cause (like in World War II) when women/men/black/hispanic/white worked and fought together side by side. We are supposed to be freer and smarter side, so we should be able to re educate ourselves and win this thing.
