Author: M. L. Cavanaugh

Mitchell Test for Cyber

Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend…

By Major Matt Cavanaugh

I’m a little tired of the back-and-forth between cyber “experts” (an overused superlative when one considers how early it is into this domain’s usefulness in security affairs), particularly the deliberately provocative expressions about a potential “cyber Pearl Harbor.”  In my mind, Richard Clarke’s 2012 book adequately represents the hype about the threat, while Thomas Rid’s 2013 book might be read as a response or a bucket of cold water to the keyboard.  Why doesn’t the cyber community put up or shut up?  Frankly, Stuxnet was not enough for proof of concept. Show us the money – especially with respect to cyber’s ability to create physical destruction in a useful or meaningful way. Or, as I’d put it: pass the “Mitchell Test.”

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Superempowered Bogeyman: Why you should not listen to Hank Crumpton about war

Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend…

By Major Matt Cavanaugh

I think Ambassador Hank Crumpton, formerly of the CIA, deserves great admiration for his service to the country.  But having just listened to a speech he gave (titled “A New Era of Conflict”) at the World Affairs Council of Dallas in 2008 (iTunes link here, date: April 8, 2008), I doubt I’ll ever listen closely to his opinions on warfare again.  There are two substantial reasons from the talk that led me to such a conclusion:

  1. He massively overstates the importance of individual actors.  Crumpton leads his argument by stating that we have “crossed the threshold into a new era of conflict,” a not-so-contentious statement. If you think about it, aren’t we always ushering in a new era of conflict in some rhetorically defensible way?  This statement isn’t the issue, so much as his description of this era: “micro actors with macro impact…the degree of asymmetry is unprecedented and the degree or asymmetry is accelerating.  Never before have [we] seen this in the history of human warfare.”  That statement, ranging from about the 5 to 7 minute mark, strikes me as going far too far – I’m sure the historians would consider this “presentist” in the extreme (and I would agree).  His argument describes the core national security threat as a large bunch of superempowered bogeymen – which I find inaccurate.

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