The Cyber Pearl Harbor redux: helpful analogy or cyber hype?

This article defends the utility of employing the Pearl Harbor analogy to characterize contemporary cyber threats, especially threats facing the United States. It suggests that despite the fact that policy-makers are keenly aware of the nature of today’s cyber threats, this knowledge does not necessarily protect them from falling victim to a strategically significant cyber surprise attack. The fact that elected officials and senior officers fall victim to strategic surprise attacks launched by known adversaries is the problematique that animates the study of intelligence failure. The article concludes with the observation that just because scholars and policy-makers can imagine a ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’ does not guarantee that they can avoid a Cyber Pearl Harbor.     

Early warning versus concept: the case of the Yom Kippur War 1973

This article begins with a definition of the terms ‘early warning’ and ‘surprise’, and examines whether the failure of Israeli Intelligence to warn Israeli decision-makers in 1973 conforms to these definitions. After examining the conventions of Israeli military intelligence regarding anticipating a surprise, and the conceptions on which these were based, the article demonstrates how events in late 1973 indicated a possible Arab attack on Israel, but also the manner in which the Concept used to measure these warnings proved more resilient than the warnings. Discussions in the few days preceding war, when information was accumulating, are subjected to particular attention. The development of a sub-conception, with the original framework allowed and changed the forecast from ‘no war’ to ‘low probability' of war. The persistence of the Concept is attributed to both strategic intelligence and also to the doctrine of deterrence. Like deterrence, intelligence success is hard to measure. One can never be sure that a surprise attack has been prevented as a result of early warning.     

Image repair in the aftermath of inaccurate polling: How the news media responded to getting it wrong in 1948 and 2016

The US presidential elections of 1948 and 2016 produced surprise outcomes when the predicted winners ended up losing the election. Using image repair theory, this article explains the strategies the media used to repair their image in light of predicting the wrong winner. Using a qualitative analysis of news coverage that immediately followed the 1948 and 2016 presidential elections, this study finds that the media utilized similar image repair strategies of offering explanations for poor information, highlighting the media’s good reporting, diminishing the harm caused by the inaccurate predictions, and justifying the inaccurate predictions of both elections. However, the media responses in 1948 and 2016 differed greatly in tone and in the utilization of a new attack strategy to deflect criticism of the media itself. These strategies suggest that media use of image restoration is limited because of the unique societal expectations placed on the press, and that the media’s inaccurate 2016 predictions and subsequent attack strategies may have been contributed to the heightened criticism of mainstream news.     

The Value of Non-Governmental Intelligence: Widening the Field

In the UK, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) has a poor track record of predicting attack. In the US, official inquiries into 9/11 identified ‘a failure of imagination’ to conceive of a large scale threat to the American homeland. There is a long-standing literature on surprise attack which emphasizes that clues to predict attack often exist but are not pieced together by an intelligence sector which is not structured to look in the right direction. In a world of increasingly fragmented threats and weak signals, it is apparent that much of the challenge in intelligence work now lies not in collection but in managing requirements, setting priorities, and conducting incisive analysis based on the ability to imagine new threats. One solution to a failure of imagination is to widen the range of people who can contribute to the task. Non-Governmental analysis of security issues, whether by academia, civil society or the private sector, can help to identify emerging issues and set priorities. Whilst collection of secret intelligence may always remain the preserve of specialist Government agencies, the rest of the intelligence cycle can benefit from external contributions and open source intelligence. We argue that the process of setting intelligence requirements could be opened to a wider range of actors. In conflict environments, there may be particular value in an open process to identify what each side would need to know about the other to confidently seek peace.     

Intelligence and the ‘Mindset’: The German invasion of Norway in 1940

‘Weserübung’, the German invasion of Norway and Denmark on 9 April 1940, was a brilliantly successful surprise attack, both strategically and tactically. Strategic surprise was obtained because the idea that Germany was about to launch a major invasion of Norway was remote from any of the preconceived scenarios about Germany's next move. Germany's achievement of tactical surprise was also aided by bad weather in the North Sea. The main reason for the failure of both Norwegian and British policy-makers to comprehend what the Germans were up to lies in the importance of the ‘mindset’. On both sides of the North Sea the conventional wisdom was that Germany would not attempt an invasion of Norway against the supremacy of British sea power. Hence all incoming information was interpreted in Oslo in the light of the next mindset, namely that only a determined British attempt to take control of the Norwegian coast could trigger an armed German retaliation. In London, incoming intelligence was interpreted so as to conform to the Admiralty's preconceived scenario of a German naval breakout into the North Atlantic.     

UK augments military and counter-terrorism capacities

While it does not represent a substantial change in direction, Britain's latest defence and security review offers a credible plan to improve, modernise and increase UK security and hard power. It maintains the UK as a significant defence power, and adds and protects future capabilities, including in areas that are needed to deal with modern threats such as terrorism and cyber attack.     

“人肉搜索”网络行为中的隐私政策

＂人肉搜索＂自产生以来,大家对其褒贬不一,最大的争议就是＂人肉搜索＂容易引发对别人隐私权的侵犯。根据搜索目的,＂人肉搜索＂主要可归为公共事件型和窥探隐私型两类,对与人格尊严没有直接关系的个人信息,在不同的＂人肉搜索＂网络行为中是否构成侵犯隐私应做具体分析、区别对待。在对＂人肉搜索＂侵犯隐私权的责任认定上,应充分考虑侵权行为、侵权产生的后果、行为与后果间的因果关系、侵权人主观过错等构成要件,而如果侵权行为是为了维护公共利益或合法取自于公共场所,则可成为抗辩事由。     

Aesop’s wolves: the deceptive appearance of espionage and attacks in cyberspace

Abstract

Appearances in cyberspace are deceptive and problematic. Deception in the cyber domain poses an immensely difficult challenge for states to differentiate between espionage activities in cyberspace and cyber attacks. The inability to distinguish between cyber activities places US cyber infrastructure in a perilous position and increases the possibility of a disproportionate or inadequate response to cyber incidents. This paper uses case analysis to examine the characteristics associated with the tools and decisions related to cyber espionage and cyber attacks to develop a framework for distinction leveraging epidemiological models for combating disease.     

The WannaCry ransomware attack

The worldwide 'WannaCry' ransomware attack of uncertain origin earlier this month did little lasting damage. Nevertheless, it indicated widespread vulnerability to threats from outlier states and non-state actors, which pose the greatest risks to cyber security. While governments and industry should adopt a more systematic and anticipatory approach to minimising such threats, they are unlikely to treat the attack as a major wake-up call.     

The Bush Administration Record in Latin America: Sins of Omission and Commission

The conventional wisdom among analysts and scholars is that at least since September 11, 2001, the United States has tended to neglect its relations with Latin America. As a result of that inattention, other countries from outside the region have been able to make inroads, and there has generally been a regional drift in the direction of election and policy outcomes that do not favor US interests. While this article assumes that conventional understanding of the outcomes in the region, the central argument here is that it is not neglect (or “sins of omission”) that best explains those developments. Rather, it is the actual US policies that have been pursued (“sins of commission”), as well as the effective strategies pursued by Latin American leaders and organizations, which are largely responsible for the situation that confronts President Obama in Latin America. The article focuses on Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, the three countries that have sometimes been described as the Latin American “axis of evil.”     

From the politics of lying to the farce at Suez: What the US knew

This article seeks to establish, in a definitive manner, what the US knew about the Suez invasion plan of 1956.

With the benefit of the CIA's U‐2 reconnaissance plane, the US was able to pinpoint, as of mid‐October, the existence of nearly three times the number of Mystère fighters in Israel than had previously been notified to Washington by the French government. That plus an information blackout on the part of the British and the French, and the breakdown of negotiations with the Egyptians at the UN, roused Washington's apprehensions that a military option was being considered. However, though there was suspicion on the part of the US that an Israeli‐French operation might be in the offing, Washington never seriously focused on the possibility of a tripartite operation involving the British, the French, and the Israelis. President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles relied on the Anglo‐American special relationship and on British good sense not to get involved. In particular, Washington completely missed the fact of the British‐French‐Israeli meeting at Sèvres, at which time (24 October), the decision was taken to launch the operation five days later. The transparent nature of the British‐French announced decision, after the Israeli attack, to ‘separate’ the Egyptian and Israeli forces doomed the operation from the start before the court of world opinion. In this manner, Operation ‘Separation of Forces’ was transformed into a force.     

Missing revolution: the American intelligence failure in Iraq, 1958

Why were American officials caught by surprise with the military coup and later revolution in Iraq on 14 July 1958? Drawing on American intelligence and diplomatic records as well as multilingual sources, this article argues that the US intelligence failure is the product of two factors: the collection of information from too few and too similar human sources of intelligence in Iraq’s ruling regime, and the unreceptivity of US officials to assessing new information and their unwillingness to update assessments of local Iraqi developments. It revisits America’s intelligence failure in Iraq and suggests important lessons for the study of intelligence.     

The future of conventional arms control

Dramatic changes in conventional military capabilities coupled with nuclear parity should greatly increase the importance of conventional military power as well as raise new opportunities and problems for arms control. Those changes are not yet widely appreciated and in fact, there is a lack of analytic tools by which to appraise their implications and importance.As an initial step to systematic analysis of the desirability and feasibility of conventional arms control agreements, this paper describes current trends in weapons development and evaluates alternative interpretations of the implications of those trends. The requirements of effective and reliable arms control agreements are then enumerated and a general assessment made of the difficulties in meeting those requirements.The conclusions reached are necessarily speculative in light of the limited data and the surprisingly sparse analysis available on the characteristics, combat effectiveness and complementary combat and supporting requirements of new conventional weaponry. However, available evidence suggests the imminent emergence of significantly greater incentives for larger conventional forces, for larger logistics and support bases, for surprise attack, and for campaign strategies that emphasize speed and high attrition on all sides. If true, these factors will increase pressures for larger military budgets while also increasing instabilities in arms competitions. They also should increase interest in arms control measures though the characteristics of new weapons technology may make designing such measures even more difficult than in the past.Prepared for delivery at the 1975 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, California, September 2–5, 1975.     

The US stay-behind operation in Iran, 1948-1953

This article explains a US initiative to prepare resistance forces for use in the event of a Soviet invasion or communist attempt to seize power in Iran during the early Cold War era. It begins by discussing similar ‘stay-behind’ operations in Europe in this era and the conditions that led US officials to develop one in Iran. It then explains what this stay-behind operation consisted of and why US officials eventually abandoned it. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the stay-behind operation in Iran differed from those in Europe and the important role it played in the decision-making that led to the 1953 coup in Iran.     

Hollywood and the Spectacle of Terrorism

As terrorist actions, both state and non-state, have spread in both frequency and destructive power since the 1960s, the topic has become an enduring source of narratives, fantasies, and myths that have contributed to Hollywood filmmaking with its familiar emphasis on international intrigue, exotic settings, graphic violence, and the demonization of foreign threats. Images of political violence have a strong appeal in the US, where the gun culture, civic violence, crime sprees, and a thriving war economy permeate the landscape. The al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 heightened public fascination with terrorism, fueled by mounting fear and paranoia, and this was destined to inspire a new cycle of films in which on-screen terrorism dramatizes elements of real-life threats that now include possible weapons of mass destruction. The “war on terror,” driven as much by US strategy to reconfigure the Middle East as by the events of 9/11, serves as the perfect backdrop for film industry productions of violent high-tech spectacles, now a major staple of media culture. For cinema as for politics, the “Middle East” now exists as a mystical category largely outside of time and space, a ready source of dark fears and threats. At the same time, corporate-driven globalization, viewed as a cultural as well as economic and political process, feeds into modern terrorism as political violence (including militarism) sharpens its capacity to attack, disrupt, and surprise—the same features now so integral to the Hollywood film industry. We see jihadic terrorism as not only a virulent form of blowback against US imperial power but as possibly the darkest side of neo-liberal globalization.     

A Crime Against Humanity

The German Red-Green coalition has declared unlimited solidarity with the US government in its response to the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Yet, very few questions have been raised by the mainstream media, and any 'inopportune' comments that have worked their way into the press, questioning the legitimacy of the response, have been declared scandalous. This article argues that the time may have come to deal with long-term developments and potential consequences of today's politics and policies and perhaps it may even be possible for us to begin to understand what is going on--a possibility that should not be ignored out of an archaic thirst for revenge.     

National cyber crisis management: Different European approaches

Cyber crises, as new forms of transboundary crises, pose serious risks to societies. This article investigates how different models of public–private partnerships shape cyber crisis management in four European countries: the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. Using Provan and Kenis's modes of network governance, an initial taxonomy of cyber governance structures is provided. The Netherlands have created a participant‐governed network, characterized by trust and equality. The Czech and Estonian models resemble a network administrative organization, with an enforcement role for their national cyber security centers. Denmark has adopted a lead‐agency model. The article concludes that countries face two binary choices when organizing cyber defense and crisis management. First, national computer emergency response teams/computer security incident response teams can be embedded inside or outside the intelligence community. Second, cyber capacity can be centralized in one unit or spread across different sectors. These decisions fundamentally shape information‐sharing arrangements and potential roles during cyber crises.     

Congressional Supervision of America's Secret Agencies: The Experience and Legacy of the Church Committee

In 1947, the United States created a modern intelligence community to guard against another surprise attack like the one at Pearl Harbor. This community consists of 13 major agencies, among them the CIA and the FBI. Concealed from public view, they pose a significant challenge to the concept of government accountability in a democratic society. This article examines the failure of congressional lawmakers to hold the secret agencies accountable during the Cold War. Contrary to recent theoretical research on legislative oversight, which suggests reasons that accountability has been strong in the United States, this study finds that a weak system of legislative review has permitted a dangerous erosion of civil liberties. The study also explores the efforts of the Church Committee in 1975 to fashion new safeguards that would reduce the probability of further abuse of power by the intelligence community.     

The Trump administration and the Russia probes

Special Counsel Robert Mueller heads the most aggressive of five investigations of possible collusion between US President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Trump has continued to pursue a conspicuously friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump will probably continue to attack the special counsel’s legitimacy and avoid unequivocally acknowledging Russian interference for as long as possible.     

青少年网络道德问题的心理学分析

网络是一把双刃剑,它对青少年开阔视野、拓宽知识领域起到了积极的促进作用,但同时也带来了某些负面的、消极的影响,其中最突出的问题是网络严重地冲击着青少年的世界观、人生观、价值观和道德观,导致青少年严重的网络道德失范行为。青少年网络道德失范问题已十分严重,这也给我们的青少年道德教育带来严峻的考验,成为教育工作者的一大研究课题。