http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2013/08/why-us-should-use-cyber-weapons-against-syria/69776/
By Jason Healey
Defense One
August 30, 2013
If the Obama administration does conduct military strikes against Syria,
as seems likely, it should use military cyber weapons at the earliest
possible moment to show the upside of military cyber power. Though this is
risky, as it puts the focus on the U.S. militarization of cyberspace, it
is likely worth doing to show that cyber operations are not evil
witchcraft but can be humanitarian.
This is not the first time the United States has been here. In 1999, the
White House was reported to have initially approved a plan for covert
"computer attacks on foreign bank accounts held by [Slobodan] Milosevic
and other Serbian leaders, such as draining assets or altering banking
records." A few years later, during the time of the second invasion of
Iraq, a similar plan was rolled out to "cripple" the financial system of
Saddam Hussein's Iraq, leaving him "no money for war supplies. No money to
pay troops."
Neither plan seems to have been executed. The Treasury Department and
senior political officials apparently blocked these attacks, for fear of
cascading failures and setting a precedent of targeting banks.
More recently, according to the New York Times, the Obama administration
and military commanders considered “a cyberoffensive to disrupt and even
disable the Gaddafi government’s air-defense system.” A cyber strike on
Libya was apparently ruled out both because there was not enough time and
also because officials felt that cyber capabilities are like a "Ferrari"
which should be saved for the "big race." The Israeli Air Force apparently
did not think so, as it was widely reported they used a backdoor "kill
switch" to disable Syrian air defenses en route to destroying an illicit
nuclear reactor.
Given this history, what can and should the United States do today against
Syria?
[...]
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