Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security? (msn.com) 45
Subsea cables. Ukrainian power stations. Russian oil refineries. Even airports, water-desalination plants and Amazon data centers.
They've all become targets in wartime, notes the Wall Street Journal, and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs." In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they could spell financial ruin. New Zealand's government has faced resistance from industry groups over a proposal to fine critical-infrastructure companies and their directors for cybersecurity breaches... A sign of how lines are blurring: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 32 countries last year agreed that as part of a pact to spend 5% of economic output on defense and security, 1.5% would go to military-adjacent needs including protecting critical infrastructure and networks. Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics... "We need a wide concept of defense — defense is no longer just military," said Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, NATO's top military adviser.
Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage. U.S. authorities in April warned that Iranian hackers were trying to disrupt American drinking-water systems by targeting computer equipment that connects hardware with software. A year earlier, suspected Russian hackers remotely manipulated valves on a Norwegian hydroelectric dam...
Another challenge will be parsing jurisdictions and liability for assets that cross international waters or are damaged in combat — such as subsea data cables or energy pipelines. Turf battles between law enforcement and militaries are already complicating efforts... "The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity," said Marc Glasser, who worked on cybersecurity and infrastructure security for three decades at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.... Companies say they need greater clarity from governments on what protections they will provide and subsidies to help them defend privately owned assets that provide a public good. Most governments don't provide incentives for companies to invest more than the minimum legal resilience requirements.
The article notes that in May the chief executive of California's Port of Long Beach "launched a cyber-defense operations center to thwart tens of thousands of cyberattacks daily, which jeopardize computer systems and all equipment connected to them."
The article also points out that the EU adopted new regulations requiring countries to reduce vulnerabilities, and new laws proposed in the U.K. now "seek to increase penalties for subsea sabotage, updating codes that date to when telegraph cables were first laid in the 19th century."
They've all become targets in wartime, notes the Wall Street Journal, and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs." In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they could spell financial ruin. New Zealand's government has faced resistance from industry groups over a proposal to fine critical-infrastructure companies and their directors for cybersecurity breaches... A sign of how lines are blurring: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 32 countries last year agreed that as part of a pact to spend 5% of economic output on defense and security, 1.5% would go to military-adjacent needs including protecting critical infrastructure and networks. Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics... "We need a wide concept of defense — defense is no longer just military," said Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, NATO's top military adviser.
Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage. U.S. authorities in April warned that Iranian hackers were trying to disrupt American drinking-water systems by targeting computer equipment that connects hardware with software. A year earlier, suspected Russian hackers remotely manipulated valves on a Norwegian hydroelectric dam...
Another challenge will be parsing jurisdictions and liability for assets that cross international waters or are damaged in combat — such as subsea data cables or energy pipelines. Turf battles between law enforcement and militaries are already complicating efforts... "The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity," said Marc Glasser, who worked on cybersecurity and infrastructure security for three decades at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.... Companies say they need greater clarity from governments on what protections they will provide and subsidies to help them defend privately owned assets that provide a public good. Most governments don't provide incentives for companies to invest more than the minimum legal resilience requirements.
The article notes that in May the chief executive of California's Port of Long Beach "launched a cyber-defense operations center to thwart tens of thousands of cyberattacks daily, which jeopardize computer systems and all equipment connected to them."
The article also points out that the EU adopted new regulations requiring countries to reduce vulnerabilities, and new laws proposed in the U.K. now "seek to increase penalties for subsea sabotage, updating codes that date to when telegraph cables were first laid in the 19th century."
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YOU aren't. You're just a fat fuck sitting in front of your TV and treating was like a sportsball game, and would *die* if it ever hit yuo.
Is This Question a Joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. "
-Gen. Smedley Butler, 1933
A lot of American wars are at the behest of resource-seeking corporations. National forces are brought out when corporate enforcers are inadequate or expensive. I thought all this got very obvious, too, when "Blackwater" was so much in the news during Iraq, and the legal need to give them the same immunity to every Iraqi law that American national troops enjoyed.
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Re: Is This Question a Joke? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's two things going on here. First there's the idea that war is the extension of diplomacy by other means. I think that's what general Butler is getting at. I read the article's and thought "total war" or "modern war," which according to my high school history teacher got rolling with the American civil War. That was when civilian infrastructure became a strategic target in military conflicts. The year after that history class I visited Pforzeim, Germany. That town made very good clocks, and their skills were put to use making precision instruments for the Nazi war effort. One morning The RAF bombed Pforzeim. 17,600 died in the ensuing firestorm.
Pedantry alert (Score:2)
One evening. The USAF bombed during daylight and the RAF at night.
Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security?
No. For everyone who can put two and two together it has always been obvious that:
1) Everything a country needs to function at war time is of strategic importance, and needs to be protected, defended, duplicated, and easily repaired, and
2) Everything a country needs to function at war time is going to be attacked. You can cry "civilian infrastructure" as much as you want, but the civilian economy supports, and is therefore largely indistinguishable from, the war economy. Damaging one means damaging another, means better chances of winning.
It was only corporations and politicians that wagered they can kick the can down the road, and not have to be the ones that will foot the bill. And they have indeed won that bet for decades, and now we have to face the fact that we have half a century of work to catch up with.
Or maybe, which is more likely, we will do our best to forget the problem, and carry on based on vibes as usual.
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They've literally spent half a century exporting our essential production to China to save a few bucks, while replacing competent employees with Indians and people who can't tell you what a woman is. Now we're supposed to believe that those people can suddenly turn all that around in time for WWIII?
It's not going to change until the West does fight one of the wars its pushing for and is decisively defeated because it's run by idiots who exported all the manufacturing to countries who don't see us as friends
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They've literally spent half a century exporting our essential production to China to save a few bucks
I think you mean, "so the middle men can pocket the savings".
Re:Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's one way to put it, if quite the understatement.
Those who exported the US manufacturing base got insanely rich off of it, unfathomably rich. In doing this they were supported by bipartisan policy, and the government ran the PR campaign for them.
To add to what was already for all practical purposes selling the country for scrap, China was also smart enough to demand technology transfer as part of the deal. So not only were they handed the factories, the exporters taught them everything they knew about technology and manufacturing.
I cannot think of a single example in the whole written history that can hold a candle to the level of stupid this was. The US handed it's leadership role in the world to China on a silver platter, and all of DC and Wall Street cheered on on it, just so that a handful of rich assholes could become even more rich.
I cannot think of a single example in the whole written history that can hold a candle to the level of smart this was. Not in a thousand years does an opportunity like this present itself to anyone, and China recognized it and took it, and understood the level of greed and stupid in the US leadership, and bought the whole country for lunch money, kitchen sink included.
Re: Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:2)
Hindsight is 20/20. I remember the '90s. In addition to getting rich, people free trade with liberalized China. Turned out they were wrong. Also, we consumers were happy to buy the inexpensive goods.
Britain spent the mid-1800s watching the US and Germany absorb its industrial technology, sometimes through outright espionage.
Re: Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:2)
"thought free trade would liberalized China".
Where is the darn edit button?
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Ukraine dismantling Russia's refineries is of strategic importance. Ukraine dismantling Russia's navy is of strategic importance.
Russia blowing up random apartments in Kiev is not. Russia hunting random civilians in human safaris is not.
Vlad thanks you for your efforts. But is unable to come out from his bunker at this time to congratulate you in person.
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Leader? The US is about to check out from the free world due to the current US Autorat
Graft (Score:4, Informative)
If it is national strategic importance, why are these companies overseas? Why isn't it nationalized?
National security is corporate security, but when you have trans-nationals, governments only serve as whores of the corporate class.
Beyond lamenting the potential loss of markets, what difference does war make except moving headquarters?
Can't have it both ways.
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Indeed. Why is this question even asked? Somebody really does not get it ...
Re: Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:1)
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Counter argument is that is does happen and its intentional to the point it becomes an actual practical barrier to fighting wars. Without economic integration what would US-Sino relations look like, probably at lot more like US-USSR between 1946-90.
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This isn't news. Look up the history of the Rothschild family and now how their private banking interest was tied up in just about every war in Europe from the 1770's on.
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"unstated ability to get access to systems" (Score:2)
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Difficult to guess what he was referring to from the lens of 27 years in the future. Access to data? Access to high performance computers? Access to technical expertise when the Playstation 1 and Gameboy Color were a incomprehensible marvels?
For context, in 1999 most computer users were running Win95/98 and AOL was still sending out free intro CDs. Windows 95 had just included the late-to-market "Internet Explorer 1.0" in the Plus! for Windows 95 pack and would
Who will pay? (Score:2)
Are techbros ever whining? (Score:2)
Has always been the case, even before the US (Score:2)
The royal british navy was created to protect merchant trading ships from pirates. Unless every major entity that interfaces with the external world is government owned, then our national interests will be facilitated by private companies, and protected by the government if deemed critical enough, as it should be.
The only other 2 options are govt everything like north korea. Or private everything which would be insanity.
Not really (Score:1)
The answer (Score:3)
Wars have always been about destroying infrastructure. WW2 had The Allies destroying oil refineries, ball bearing plants, railways harbors and other manufacturing. As Germans retreated via rail, they had machinery that broke up the railroad ties. Uncle Joe Stalin moved his materiel production factories out of range. All corporate stuff.
Sometimes I wonder if the people who write these stories don't study history at all.
Who do you think finances gov & wars (Score:2)
Cyber-defense operations center launched (Score:2)
If only there were a device that could isolate your private network from the public network. Something like a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
No, the internet has already done that. (Score:2)
Are they blirring the lines? (Score:2)
You mean they weren't already?
Let's start with the English/Chinese Opium wars?
It strikes me... (Score:2)
That if that's happening, perhaps the companies involved should be nationalized.
(And their execs paid GS salaries, not millions)>