The computer worm Stuxnet broke out of the tech underworld and into the mass media this week. It’s an amazing story: Stuxnet has infected roughly 45,000 computers. Sixty percent of these machines happen to be in Iran. Which is odd. What is odder still is that Stuxnet is designed specifically to attack a computer system using software from Siemens which controls industrial facilities such as factories, oil refineries, and oh, by the way, nuclear power plants. As you might imagine, Stuxnet raises big, interesting geo-strategic questions. Did a state design it as an attack on the Iranian nuclear program? Was it a private group of vigilantes? Some combination of the two? Or something else altogether?
I mean, as long as it is a problem for other nations we don't like, of course.
Also interesting is the idea that it might not be a government that did this. If not Israel, Jewish organizations or individuals are a logical suspect.
It is old news that a Jewish volunteer organization has already decided to wage a cyber-war against jihadi web sites.
This will become common, I think. Heck, was Stuxnet a cyber-hit done on contract?
And if so, this type of privatized war will not be restricted to the Internet for long, I also think.
Already, private foreign policy is incredibly common. You don't think so? Well what do you call non-governmental organizations? These NGOs are carrying out private foreign policy:
For decades after World War II, all these outsiders brought with them was food and medical care. The people on the receiving end were pretty desperate, and grateful for the help. But NGOs have branched out into development and social programs. This has caused unexpected problems with the local leadership. Development programs disrupt the existing economic, and political, relations. The local leaders are often not happy with this, as the NGOs are not always willing to work closely with the existing power structure. While the local worthies may be exploitative, and even corrupt, they are local, and they do know more about popular attitudes and ideals than the foreigners. NGOs with social programs (education, especially educating women, new lifestyle choices and more power for people who don't usually have much) often run into conflict with the local leadership.
Some people here like to say that our people should be more involved in the war, like our mobilized World War II society was, that currently is waged by a tiny military force backed by a civilian-focused economy.
I bet these same people won't be happy about civilians getting involved in the war this way. Somehow, those people calling for more public sacrifice only seem to want higher taxes (that never go to weapons or paying for defense, of course).
I'd guess that Americans are less likely to follow this route since our government actually wages war. But perhaps if we go the route of post-violence European governments and refuse to fully fight the jihadis, it will be a race between Europeans and Americans fighting their own private war in defense of the West. Are their Israelis or Jews abroad worried that Israel won't fight Iran?
Is Stuxnet an early sign of this outcome? Is war going private before our eyes?
