Blog Post 3: Israel is looking into Cyberwarfare

So I found an article here that talks about how Israel is preparing for cyberwarfare. In December of 2008, during the winter war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, there was an Arab attack on the Israeli Internet infrastructure. Israel fought back by hacking into an Arab television network with a message that said, "Hamas leaders are hiding and they left you on the front line." The article goes on to talk about how cyberwarfare can shut down a country's economy and military by attacking its computer systems. Israel's chief of Military Intelligence announced that Israel is becoming a world leader in cyberwarfare. Apparently, he was not lying because according to the article, "In 2008 the Technolytics Institute, a private U.S. consultancy, rated Israel the sixth biggest 'cyberwarfare threat' after China, Russia, Iran, France and 'extremist/terrorist groups.'"

This article gives the impression that cyberwarfare could be a revolutionary change in the way countries fight. I agree with this to some extent. This kind of warfare could literally shut down a country without bloodshed. However, it depends on how a country chooses to use their cyber power. If the country uses it to hack into military systems it could cause more deaths by crashing planes, shutting down strategic defensive bases, etc. On the other hand, a country could choose to just hack into an enemy's computer system and shut down their economy. This would cause the enemy to be extremely crippled without shedding any blood.

The article does mention that cyberwarfare could be a great opportunity for small countries to gain more power. If small countries were extremely technologically advanced they could compete against bigger countries without having to worry about the difference in population size. It seems to me, though, that advances in technology have always given countries the upper hand in warfare. So in this respect, I do not believe cyberwarfare is really a revolutionary change. Nevertheless, I do think cyberwarfare can give very small, militarily weak countries a new opportunity to gain more power than ever. Cyberwarfare could be important for small countries because it is much cheaper than a traditional war. A small country that could not afford to buy military equipment could easily afford a cyberwar. Therefore, small countries could be very empowered by cyberwarfare because they do not need large numbers of people or a lot of money to be successful.

After reading this article, I hope that the U.S. is as advanced in terms of cyberwarfare as Israel. The fact that Israel made such a public announcement seems to imply that they are pretty confident in their cyberwarfare capabilities. I would like to see more media and government attention to this issue in the very near future. With other types of warfare countries have to spend time creating strategies and training their military. Cyberwarfare could easily take less time to execute and could be done in very secretive manner. Basically, as Americans we need to make sure we are not caught by surprise. I truly do believe that superior technology is the most important factor to being a powerful country I think cyberwarfare is something to watch out for.